Things I've Learned Archives - Ann Freeman Price

Eliminating Excuses

Ann — Sat, 02 Jan 2016 04:16:47 +0000

Eliminating Excuses – January 1
It’s January first and many people are launching new diets on this day—reforming from the holidays and starting anew.
I don’t diet anymore but I do adhere (part of the time) to the Weight Watcher eating program. I am a life time member and believe that it has been a healthy program that works for me whether I want to maintain where I am or whether I want to shed a few pounds.
Today I weighed 5.5 pounds less than I did last January first, and that was intentional. Through the year I recognize that three lines of excuses broke out most of the time when I went off the program.
The first excuse: I’ve already broken with the program today so I’ll just stay off until tomorrow and then I can start fresh! That means I’m allowing myself for the rest of that day to eat anything I want!!!
The second excuse: I have to get this out of the house completely before I can go back to the program. After Christmas I happened to have three individual containers of pecan pie. So I said to myself—I’ll eat one today. Believe me, pecan pie blows any program! Then the next day there are still two containers of pecan pie. Well, I’ll just eat them both which totally, totally blows that day but then at least the pecan pie is gone!
The third excuse: I’m not really hungry—I just need to eat something, want to eat something, am going to eat something. And in that space of time that I am saying that to myself, I do not want to take a walk. I want to eat.
It’s January first and luckily it is a wonderful day to begin again.

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The People In My House

Ann — Thu, 31 Dec 2015 01:27:26 +0000

The People in My House
I live alone—and yet, all around me there are people.
Each time I use the bejeweled tea bag squeezer, I think of Cathie who gave it to me. At first I didn’t even know whether I would use it. Now I use it each time I make tea and think of Cathie.
When I sit on my bed and look at the oil painting of the ocean at Ocean City, New Jersey, I see my granddaughter Lissa, as she sat on the bench facing the ocean and painted—for two days one year, and for one day the next year. People stopped and looked over her shoulder, nodding positively.
There’s a picture in my kitchen of people at a carousel. It’s cast with blue colors and because I love riding carousels, I love the picture and think of granddaughter, Sadie, who went to the recycling center with her Dad and found it in the little place where they pull out special things that shouldn’t go to the dump just yet. I smile and think of Sadie bringing it home to me.
Around Christmas-time I think of Will Albertus because I have in my vision three of his carpentry creations—a Christmas wooden puzzle which I have to figure out anew every single year; a rolling Santa which keeps tumbling off the end because I forget how to do it gently; and the little wooden person supposedly trapped in a box.
I smile at the sight of any of them but especially when I’m feeling trapped, I think of Will and look again at the figure in the box. She’s behind bars but the bars only exist on one side of the four-sided open box. All she has to do to get out is turn around and walk. I consider whether that could be true of my entrapment also.
I like living in my apartment—and I also like living with the people who are constantly present in my three room surroundings. I also like living with the four people who live next door in the attached house to my three rooms.

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On the Brink of Lent

Ann — Tue, 17 Feb 2015 02:44:30 +0000

On the Brink of Lent
This year I have made multiple plans for Lent and am now excited that Ash Wednesday is just around the corner.
Years ago when my children were young, I wrote an activity for every day of Lent for us to do as a family—keep a calendar of sunrises and sunsets to see how the days do lengthen; having a Stone Soup party; making pretzels; creating a spring mobile; having a wonder bowl; writing an Easter litany, and on and on.
Now the children are grown and I find myself making a Lenten plan just for me. The other night I was reading in the magazine Weavings, an article titled “Keep In Touch,” and it gifted me with my outline for Lent.
My plan is titled “Staying in Touch During Lent” and it has three parts: Staying in touch with those around me, with my truest self, and with God.
Staying in Touch With Those Around Me—goes back several years to a time when I was down in the dumps. It happened to be around Lent, and a friend of mine said, “Why don’t you try contacting somebody each day during Lent and letting them know you’re thinking about them.” I did that and my “down-in-the-dumps” left.
In its place has been a rich practice of calling people who live too far for me to see them often, or contacting people that are just going through a hard time, or reaching out to people I just want to be sure I stay in touch with. And I keep track in a special calendar of these calls (or lunches, or over-nights), so that I keep myself accountable and can know that it’s been six weeks since I talked to this one or that one and they’re due for a call.
For this section I’m also going to explore whether there’s a way to expand “those around me” to beyond my friends and into the world.
Staying in Touch With My Truest Self—this section involves a little book titled 40 Soul-Stretching Conversations—writing a spiritual journal with Joan Chittister.” She writes a short piece, she gives the reader either a short piece of scripture or a quote by someone, and then provides space for me to write a few sentences of reflection.
This section also asks me to be in relationship to food in a healthy, reasonable way. There’s an empty bowl on my dining room table that Thich Nhat Hanh refers to as a bowl of appropriate measure. It reminds me.
Staying in Touch With God— This one involves a short daily meditation time (can be with a mindfulness walk, a sitting prayer time, or a movement dance). And finally this section ends each evening with a time of prayer, a time of me questioning my day and a short journal entry of how I lived in the middle of it, and ending with a song.
And so it’s an intentional staying in touch during Lent. Join me on part of it or all of it, or at the least, wish me well.

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Gain Some–Lose Some

Ann — Tue, 27 Jan 2015 01:30:07 +0000

Gain Some——Lose Some
I’m reminded of the quote by Erma Bombeck: I’ve been on a constant diet for the last two decades. I’ve lost a total of 789 pounds. By all accounts, I should be hanging from a charm bracelet.
I happened in 2014 to keep track pretty conscientiously of my weight. I found that some days I would gain a half a pound, some days I would lose a pound, some days I would gain two pounds, etc., etc. Well, I went through those records and found that over the course of the year I gained 85 1/2 pounds, and I lost 79 1/2 pounds. On January first I weighed 150. And on December 31st I weighed 144 1/2. My highest weight within the year was 152, and my lowest weight was 138. That’s a fluctuation of fourteen pounds.
I don’t know what it all proves. It just was a little bit interesting.

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Long-Term Program–Join Me

Ann — Sun, 25 Jan 2015 01:06:18 +0000

Long-Term Program—Join Me
I’m starting a five-year program today. I woke up this morning thinking—you can do it—you just need to do it longer than a day, or a month, or until it collapses. Stay with it for five years!
I have to tell you that for the years 2001 to 2005 I kept a five-year diary. Not the little leather kind that has a lock and key and is pink leather and has teeny tiny spaces to write in. Back in 2001 I got a regular loose-leaf notebook and regular 8 1/2 by 11 lined notebook paper and I divided each page into five sections. The top section was 2001, second section 2002, third section 2003—-you get the idea. Each page was one day—January 1 for instance. And I filled in each section for five years. The beauty of this 365-page journal is that each page has the entry for January 7th or June 14th, and you can easily read where you were a year ago.
For me, the issue that I’m going to address is eating. I go on and off a diet. I am “good” for three days and then go berserk. I am a life-time member of Weight Watchers. I am not grossly overweight. But at my age of 81 years, the less I carry around the better it is for my back and my knees.
Now if you want to join me, it doesn’t have to be around eating. It could be something else you really want to accomplish AND you want to stick with it until it IS accomplished. So make your notebook (I’ve already got mine started and ready to go for these last days of January—although I’m using a 5 1/2” x 8 1/2” notebook this time). I’d say “good luck” to us, but in this instance, it isn’t about luck I’m thinking. It’s more about sticking to a goal for a good, long time, and writing it down. Make your notebook and let me know you’re joining me and if you want, let me know your project.

If you want to be able to comment, you can go on my website which is: annfreemanprice.com and click on the title of the most recent posting – it will say Long-Term Program—Join Me – and at the end of that posting click comment. If you’ve never commented before, wordpress will ask you to sign in to wordpress. Just the first time—-from then on you’re good.

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New Year Prayer and Resolution

Ann — Thu, 08 Jan 2015 02:53:46 +0000

377. New Year Prayer and Resolution
I came across the other day those lines that were used in the musical “Godspell” but that really dated back to the 1200’s. You’ll recognize them in the prayer of Saint Richard of Chichester (1197 to 1253).

Thanks be to thee, my Lord Jesus Christ,
for all the benefits thou hast given me,
for all the pains and insults thou hast borne for me.
O most merciful redeemer, friend and brother,
may I know thee more clearly,
love thee more dearly,
follow thee more nearly, day by day. Amen.

And almost immediately we can sing those last three lines—–know thee more clearly, love thee more dearly, follow thee more nearly, day by day, by day, by day, by day.
I can hardly imagine a better prayer for the New Year-—and in fact, I can hardly imagine a better resolution for the New Year.

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Hymn of Thanks Giving

Ann — Wed, 26 Nov 2014 17:21:30 +0000

Here’s a hymn I wrote recently to a familiar tune. Try singing it on this day before Thanksgiving. It’s the only hymn I know of with the word “chocolate” in it. Yeah! Have a wonderful Thanksgiving Day!

—

Song of Thanks Giving

Tune: Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee

—

Thank you for the friends around me,

Thank you for the food I eat,

Thank you for the porch I sit on,

Thanks for chocolate, rich and sweet.

Thank you for my family gathered,

Even when we don’t agree,

Thanks for goals that keep me striving,

Thank you for the world I see.

—

Thank you for the storm that’s swirling,

Helps me work for peace sublime,

Thank you for my daily projects,

Help me carefully to use time.

Thank you for the opposite pieces,

For the yes, and for the no,

Help me listen, help me offer

New directions we can go.

—

Thank you for the busy parts of

Every day in which I live,

Thank you for the times of silence

When I settle in to give.

Give myself into your service,

God of plenty, God of spare,

Help me keep on seeing thank-you’s

In my life—most everywhere.

—

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Rock-a-Roo Chair

Ann — Sat, 15 Nov 2014 16:48:20 +0000

I was going through some old memories I have typed and found this poem. It is long but captures that time in 1990 when I was engaged in full days of grandchild day-care and loving it. Reading the poem again brought back to me the reality of that Rock-a-roo chair and the Rock-a-roo song and the feeling of that little boy in my arms. That little boy is now 25.

***

Rock-A-Roo Chair

***

rocking with a baby

is one of the moments

where cuddle and

special take over

and pressure and must do

melt away

***

cherish the feel

of a tiny one

wrapped tight in blankets

rocking back and forth

forth and back

***

start to breathe

differently in a rocking

chair – breaths

synchronize with

sounds of wooden runners

skimming the floor

***

sometimes feet make

a pattern sound

heel – toe; heel toe heel toe

baby quiets

adult too

***

sometimes songs gather

themselves in the rocker

Rockin in the rockin chair

You and me

Looking out the window

What do you see

Sometimes you see a car

And sometimes the car is green

and sometimes the car is red

and sometimes the car is blue

and sometimes the car is yellow

Rockin in the rockin chair

You and me…..

***

two and three-year-olds

will fight sleep for nearly

twenty-seven minutes

wanting to pick the

next thing you see out the window

or the next color

the list is endless

the moon, leaves,

animals, sun

real or pretend

there can always be

another verse

***

sooner or later

and later or sooner

even three-year-olds

get eyelids that

flicker closed

and heads that burrow

into softness and

sleepness

***

adult heads rest too

on the high backed rocker

adult eyes slide shut

sinking in the luxury

of rockin’ rhythm

and toddler scrumptious

***

rocking with a baby

is the moment

where cuddle

and special

are most

***

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New Hymn

Ann — Tue, 30 Sep 2014 03:12:45 +0000

373. New Hymn

Last April I posted a recommendation for the book, “Just Jesus” by Walter Wink. Not long after I finished that book I wrote the following hymn, but I’m just getting around five months later to post it. Anyway, I’m back now. Here’s the hymn:

—

Follow This Jesus

(Dedicated to Walter Wink and his book, Just Jesus)

—

I would follow this Jesus who all through his days

Walked the road of compassion and non-violent ways.

He spoke of resistance when things were not just,

And he lived an example in which we can trust.

—

I would follow this Jesus who knew how to live,

Saving time for himself, finding time he could give

To others around him, both strangers and friend,

Showing how God is present without and within.

—

Yes, with Jesus before me and through all my years

He has given his model to conquer my fears.

I’ll live life authentic as he did each day,

I will follow this Jesus and know of the Way.

—

(Tune: How Firm a Foundation)

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“Just Jesus” by Walter Wink

Ann — Fri, 18 Apr 2014 01:33:49 +0000

Just Jesus – by Walter Wink

The book I’m most recently talking about is Just Jesus—My Struggle To Become Human by Walter Wink. I knew Walter Wink and his wife June Keener-Wink and in fact did a five-day workshop with both of them in 1994 at Auburn Theological Seminary in New York City. Walter died in May of 2012, and this, his last book, was released in January of 2014.

I’ve read it twice and am not done with it yet. It has a hold on me. It’s written in 67 short vignettes, some as brief as part of a page, and some as long as seven pages. They stand alone and yet, as a collection they also stand together.

In my first reading, I read slowly, one vignette a day—partly because I wanted to think about it, and partly because I didn’t want it to come to an end. The different parts of his life shine through this book—Walter Wink as scholar and theologian; Walter Wink as peace and social activist; Walter Wink as human being; and Walter Wink as a person who is dying.

It feels to me as if he has left a manuscript for us to read that encourages me to keep trying to be an authentic human being and at the same time lets me know that there is grace abundant and I don’t need to pound every day senseless in trying.

Read it – see what he says to you.

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